The Ship Breakers

Modern steel-hulled ships are built to last for several decades at sea before repair becomes uneconomical. After their useful life is over, more than 90 percent of the world's ocean-going container ships end up on the shores of India, Pakistan, Indonesia, or Bangladesh, where labor is cheap, demand for steel is high, and environmental regulations are lax. The ships are driven right up onto shoreline lots set aside for ship breaking, then attacked by hammer and blowtorch until all usable material has been stripped away to be sold or recycled. The work is extremely difficult, and low-paid workers face significant risks from the dangerous conditions and exposure to materials like asbestos and heavy metals. Environmental groups have raised alarms for years over the continued release of toxins into the environment from these shipyards. Gathered here are images from these yards taken over the past several years.

A shipyard worker is enveloped in fumes coming off a separating wall he is cutting through with his blowtorch inside the hull of a ship being dismantled in one of the 127 ship-breaking plots in Gaddani, some 40Kms west of Karachi, Pakistan, on July 9, 2012. Gaddani's ship-breaking yards employ some 10,000 workers including welders, cleaners, crane operators and worker supervisors. The yards are one of the largest ship-breaking operations in the world rivaling in size those located in India and Bangladesh. It takes 50 workers about three months to break down a midsize average transport sea vessel of about 40,000 tonnes. The multimillion-dollar ship-breaking industry contributes significantly to the national supply of steel to Pakistani industries. For a six-day working week of hard and often dangerous work handling asbestos, heavy metals and PCBs, employees get paid about 300 USD a month of which half is spent on food and rent for run-down rickety shacks near the yards, a labor representative told AFP.#

A Pakistani worker pulls on a wire he will connect to a thick chain that will in turn be used to peel away a slab of the outer structure of a beached vessel in one of the 127 ship-breaking plots in Gaddani, Pakistan, on July 10, 2012.#

A worker washes his hands in the river at a ship-breaking yard in Chittagong on August 19, 2009. Bangladesh is dependent on ship-breaking for its domestic steel requirements. The Chittagong shipbreaking yard is a highly polluted coastal belt of 20 km. The number of accidents and casualties at the yard is believed to be the highest in the region, according to environmental organizations.#

In this photograph taken on July 11, 2012, Pakistani shipyard workers remove oil barrels from inside the hull of a vessel beached and being dismantled at one of the 127 ship-breaking plots in Gaddani.#

A worker stands at shipbreaking yard on March 22, 2010 in Cilincing, Jakarta, Indonesia. Ships are driven into the 10km beach strip here at high tide, where demolition begins for a fee usually no more than USD5 per day for the workers.#

In this photograph taken on July 10, 2012, a Pakistani shipyard worker pulls on a wire attached to a motor that will help peel away part of the outer structure of a beached vessel being dismantled in one of the 127 ship-breaking plots in Gaddani, Pakistan.#

Workers climb to enter India's first aircraft carrier INS Vikrant to dismantle it at a ship-breaking yard in Mumbai, India, on November 22, 2014. The iconic naval vessel, that was purchased from Britain in 1957, played a key role during the India-Pakistan war of 1971 and was decommissioned in 1997.#

Workers at a steel factory make steel rods out of cargo ship scrap on July 20, 2008 in Dhaka, Bangladesh. While the price of scrap metals has risen globally recently, workers at scrap factories in Bangladesh make an average under fifty cents and hour.#

Kurniah collects rust from a beach at a ship demolition site, near Tanjung Priok port in Jakarta, Indonesia, on April 16, 2010. Kurniah said she can earn approximately $2 after collecting about 100 kg (220 lbs) of rust a day. The rust is sold to a middleman who will sell it to a factory that will recycle it.#